The focus will now be more on diversity. The Delta school district's International Student Program has become so successful the emphasis is moving from trying to simply get students from overseas to having them from a greater variety of countries, program director Dr. Deirdre Annett told the board of education earlier this month.
"It's really exciting that different countries are coming on board. We're not sticking with China and Korea and we're really trying to diversify," she said.
This year the district has around 700 international students from 29 countries. That's up about 100 from last year, although some are not full-time. New to the mix this year are students from Italy, Cambodia and Croatia, while more students are arriving from Germany, Spain and Mexico.
"China and Japan continue to grow without me being aggressive there, and Korea has seen no change, but Latin America is kind of our big story where we're putting a lot of our (marketing) energy right now," said Annett. "Those countries used to be just Brazil and Mexico, but now we have students from Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela."
The program has become an important source of revenue for Delta, generating $7.4 million last year. The revenues have increased steadily, up from the $3.1 million in 2009/10.
Annett said they are on track to see revenues go up once again this school year, even more than what had been budgeted. She said although revenue is important, diversity will also be a key now that it's an established program with a good reputation.
"Now I'm kind of crafting who we have. I've talked to my colleagues in Coquitlam and Vancouver and they are really relying on China first and that's where they're going. If you watch the stock market, things can change and we've just had three students from China who have left. They cited financial difficulty."
Diversity is also important to have more of a global feel for the district, Annett added.
"I'm really trying to nurture new markets and keep things fresh. Host families can get bored of hosting and if you have a new country they might want to do it for another year. We have a lot of hosting families that actually have a big map on their wall and they pin where they had students," she said.
While China, Korea and Japan continue to be the "bread and butter" of the program, diversity is allowing the district to be more selective in the students it accepts.
Annett also said India "continues to be on my radar" but the continued difficulty has been students being able to get visas. About 20 kids every year have applied to study in Delta, but there's been a 100 per cent visa rejection rate.
The district graduated 102 international students last year and almost all went on to post-secondary. In addition to marketing itself as having one of the top graduation rates in the province, Delta's international program advertises that "Delta has very low ESL populations, with 90 per cent English-speaking students in many schools; so international students will learn English quickly in immersion environments." The district has also signed on with several new "sister schools."
